Finance & Insurance Marketing in the Nordics: What drove growth in 2025 – and the playbook for winning in 2026
Download the full 2025–2026 Finance & Insurance Marketing Report
LOOKING BACK
The six behaviours that set the winners apart in 2025
What really shaped performance in 2025?
This executive summary distils the key marketing trends, lessons and success factors from Nepa’s work with leading finance and insurance brands across Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway.
From rising expectations around trust and simplicity, to human–AI hybrid service models, shifting mortgage behaviour and the growing role of first-party data — this overview shows how financial brands generated growth in a year marked by economic pressure, regulatory change and increasing customer scrutiny.
👉 Below is a condensed version of our full report Nordic Finance & Insurance Marketing 2025–2026.
Download the full report for deeper data, case stories and actionable guidance for your 2026 planning.
The six behaviours that set the marketing winners apart in 2025
Below is the executive summery – fill out the form above to get access to our full report.
#1. Trust, simplicity and helpfulness became the strongest commercial and marketing drivers
Across banking, mortgages and insurance, the brands that grew were those whose marketing consistently signalled safety, ease and genuine helpfulness. Consumers felt comfortable splitting products across providers, but they still gave the largest share of wallet to brands they trusted in stressful moments — and this trust was largely built through marketing.
Clear patterns across Nepa’s Finance & Insurance studies:
– Emotional reassurance and reliability in brand and CX communication strongly predicted choice.
– “We-centric” personality traits (trustworthy, helpful, responsible) drove positive shifts in consideration and ad effectiveness.
– A CX index built on trust, simplicity and helpfulness moved in parallel with satisfaction and repeat intent.
Nepa insight: In finance marketing, trust and helpfulness are not soft values. They are leading indicators of commercial performance and future product uptake.
#2. Simple, empathetic insurance campaigns outperformed price-led marketing
The most effective insurance marketing avoided price shouting. Instead, the strongest campaigns focused on one clear, human message anchored in real-life moments.
Winning campaigns showed:
– High message clarity (85–90%).
– A single, emotionally resonant idea (“we’re there when it really matters”).
– Distinctive brand assets that made the sender obvious in seconds.
Nepa insight: Marketing that clearly signals care and reliability drives both recall and willingness to pay a premium.
#3. Long-term mortgage concepts strengthened marketing effectiveness in a slow market
High interest rates kept mortgage demand low, but brands that grew stuck with one long-term marketing platform rather than refreshing campaigns frequently.
Observed patterns:
– Paid media’s contribution to consideration nearly doubled in MMM when tied to a recurring concept.
– Ad observation rose from the mid-40s to ~70%.
– Sender recall increased significantly.
Nepa insight: In mortgage marketing, long-term creative platforms outperform rapid campaign turnover.
#4. First-party data and addressable marketing channels outperformed broad digital spend
Digital budgets grew — but incrementality was uneven. Generic search and broad display delivered low-value volume.
MMM repeatedly showed:
– Generic search consumed ~40% of budget but drove only ~8% incremental sales.
– Lookalikes, affiliate retargeting, email/app pushes and other data-rich formats drove significantly higher ROI.
Nepa insight: The marketing question is no longer “digital vs non-digital” — it is “high-incremental vs low-incremental”.
#5. The measurement “trinity” became a defining capability for high-performing marketing teams
The top-performing finance and insurance marketers didn’t treat analytics as projects. They operated with an integrated marketing measurement system:
– Brand Tracking for salience, consideration and brand attributes.
– Campaign Evaluation to understand why specific waves succeeded.
– MMM for quantifying channel contribution to sales and brand outcomes.
Nepa insight: When the trinity is hardwired into marketing planning and optimisation, brands unlock 10–20%+ ROI improvements.
#6. Hybrid marketing + CX — automation supported by human reassurance — won key moments
Marketing, digital CX and service design increasingly blended. AI and bots removed friction in low-stakes tasks, but in complex or emotional moments, customers demanded human expertise.
Nepa insight: The strongest outcomes came from journeys where marketing, digital CX and human support worked together — not from automation alone.
What will matter most for Finance & Insurance Marketing in 2026
- First-party data becomes the core marketing asset
Effective targeting, personalisation and ROI gains require a connected, consent-based data spine across products. - Brand, marketing, CX and product journeys must operate as one system
Winners will align brand positioning (“safe, easy, helpful”) with marketing messaging, CX scripts, UX copy and service design. - MMM becomes the standard model for marketing investment decisions
With weakened platform signals, MMM becomes essential for annual and quarterly allocation. - Digital sales journeys become central to marketing performance
Growth will come from redesigning marketing journeys to close the intent–conversion gap — particularly on mobile. - Marketing leaders must speak CFO-ready language
Being able to express marketing impact in commercial terms (“1pp consideration = X MSEK future revenue”) will be decisive.
What Nordic CMOs should do next
- Put first-party data at the centre of marketing, creative and CX
- Align brand and marketing around the attributes people buy: safe, easy, helpful, transparent..
- Institutionalise Brand Tracking + Campaign Evaluation + MMM as non-negotiable inputs to marketing planning.
- Redesign digital journeys to increase sales conversion, not just visits or traffic.
- Translate marketing results into simple, financial rules-of-thumb for CFOs and finance partners.
LOOKING BACK
What really worked in 2025?
What really shaped performance in 2025?
This executive summary distils the key marketing trends, lessons and success factors from Nepa’s work with leading finance and insurance brands across Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway.
From rising expectations around trust and simplicity, to human–AI hybrid service models, shifting mortgage behaviour and the growing role of first-party data — this overview shows how financial brands generated growth in a year marked by economic pressure, regulatory change and increasing customer scrutiny.
👉 Download the full report for deeper data, case stories and actionable guidance for your 2026 planning.
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